DES MOINES, Iowa – Misfortune
became blessing when a rain delay forced the men’s decathlon and 10k to be
pushed back from Thursday to Friday.

With an extra night of rest, and a personal record in the
javelin before the meet had to be postponed, sophomore Curtis Beach was able to attack the men’s 1,500 and notch the
second fastest time ever run in the decathlon 1,500 on the way to a new NCAA
record of 3:59.13.Beach, sitting in
sixth after the javelin, netted 960 points with his effort and launched himself
into second place with a grand total of 8084. Beach beat out Miller Moss of
Clemson and Mateo Sossah of North Carolina, the two decathletes who bested at
the ACC meet.

“Right from the beginning I wanted to go out and have fun
and not worry about any scores or anything about place. Just enjoying the
moment.” Beach reflected. “Training has been going great in all the weeks
leading up to this.I knew I’d be in a
position to PR a lot, and mentally I was just there too. Having fun and just
really enjoying it.”

After another rain delay pushed the men’s 10k back another
hour and a half from its rescheduled start time of 4pm, Bo Waggoner was finally able to lace up the spikes and go to work.
Waggoner started in lane one and ran with the pack for the first 800. As the
leaders started to push, Waggoner was unable to pursue and was forced to fall
back. As he ran in no mans land, he focused on his splits and was able to
finish the race in 30:24.07. “It wasn’t the race I wanted to run, but I enjoyed
the experience.” Waggoner said.

Next on the track was Cydney Ross in the finals of the women’s 800m. Ross, running from lane eight, took
off well and was able sit in the middle of the pack. Coming through the first
400 in 59.7 seconds, she slowly started to move up. With 300 left to go,
another runners misstep caused Ross to lose a shoe. In a show of determination,
Ross never missed a step and finished the race in eighth in 2:06.83, securing
All-America status. “It was frustrating,” Ross commented on losing the shoe
“but there was nothing to do about it. It was a great experience just being
here.”

The final event of the night featured Ryan McDermott in the 3k steeplechase.McDermott, who has been nursing a calf
injury, was never able to quite find his rhythm in the race. He took off strong
but fell behind and was also forced to run in no man’s land. He finished in a
time of 9:14.28.

The final day of the championships will be tomorrow at 1pm
EST. Kate Van Buskirkwill be
running in the women’s 1,500 which is scheduled to be shown live during CBS’s
live two hour broadcast.